Intel has been championing small-form-factor systems of late. The chip giant has taken the lead by producing the barebones and chassis for mainstream PCs under its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) initiative. NUCs take advantage of the ever-more integration in Intel processors - where the CPU, GPU and memory controller are tied together - and miniaturisation of storage to deliver reasonable performance for a computer that's smaller than a paperback book.

The first NUC, released last year, used a 3rd Generation Core (Ivy Bridge) processor at the helm. Intel has since introduced the 4th Generation Haswell chips, imbued with better graphics and more performance, so it makes a lot of sense to upgrade the NUC's potential as and when newer technologies surface.

Over the past few years, there is one video card company that had really caught my eye with a couple unique products. PowerColor introduced the Devil 12 and has followed up with various Devil cards that have been really sharp. It’s always exciting to see a video card manufacture really step up. When PowerColor offered to send over their new R9 270X I jumped at the chance, excited to see what their PCS+ cooling is all about.

Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag is powered by a wide range of NVIDIA technologies that allow it to deliver striking graphics and an exhilarating gaming experience. In addition to using long-standing NVIDIA technologies like FXAA and TXAA to improve image quality, it also leverages newer technologies like NVIDIA HBAO+, God Rays, and Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS) to enhance the games overall atmosphere. Combined with rich object detail and being the first game to ever launch with 4K textures, Assassins Creed IV Black Flag takes advantage of the best graphics technologies and architectural features available in GeForce GTX 700-series graphics cards.

The KingSpec CHA-M2B7 M.2 NGFF ultrabook SSD is available in capacities of 32, 64 an 128GB and is a 42mm(L) X 22mm(W)X3.2mm(H) SATA M.2 SSD. To say it is small is an understatement as we can fit four of these on a typical business card with plenty of room to spare.

There is a large variety of gaming headsets in the market today, but Sennheiser has just made your next purchase that much easier, especially if you own multiple gaming platforms. Sennheiser's U320 has a sleek design that comes with high-end audio quality normally found in studio headphones. We put the Sennheiser U320 to the test in the TechnologyX labs, and the results do not disappoint!

The Ashura is breathing new life into Scythe's CPU cooler lineup. Featuring an offset single tower design, this heatsink offers enough clearance even for the tallest modules in all four memory slots. With a price below $50, it is also quite affordable, while providing decent noise levels and good cooling.

2014 is finally here people and just like one of my friends says each year is a brand new 365 paged book so make sure you all write each page the best way you can. 2014 is a particularly special year since there are many things for us to look forward including the new X99 chipset based mainboards by Intel (finally something to replace our X79 system although we will keep it as well to continue with some of our databases) which will also use the brand new DDR4 RAM, new SSD/HDD hybrid models with large capacity NAND flash, new HDDs with at least 6TB capacities and of course new SSD NAND flash controllers. CES may just be 4 days away but some prototypes may actually make it there in time (if not we will probably see them in this year's CeBIT) so if you live near Las Vegas i strongly recommend attending if you'd like a first row seat on everything new to come in 2014. Now normal SATA III SSDs may not be the hottest hardware component around currently but thanks to all the continuous price drops sales keep increasing so naturally every manufacturer out there wants a piece of the pie. Kingston has been amongst the top players for quite some time now and although they have enough SSD models to cover every consumer out there still they keep adding more the last of which is the SSDnow KC300.

As technology advances we are all becoming more connected in our homes. It is not uncommon for households to have multiple smartphones, tablets and desktop/laptop systems all connected to a network. But which hardware will help to maximise your enjoyment and experience? Today we round up a few items which we feel can make for an ideal base install.

Today we take a look at Western Digital's My Cloud Personal Cloud Storage, an external hard drive system that connects to your home network and can be access from the internet via a PC, smartphone, or tablet just like a cloud base service. The WD My Cloud is a personal private cloud at its core and is basically a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device designed to have tons of functionality and extremely an easy to use GUI. Today we'll be talking a look at the WD My Cloud 2TB.

Computer storage comes in many forms and we need to have it for everything really, I’m the type of person who doesn’t care of the cloud and I put everything on hard drives for my backups. I don’t keep the drives in my computer because you never know what will happen, a virus can affect all the drives and that would be bad so I use something like the products I have for review today, a hot-swap dock. Today for review I have the iStarUSA BPN-DE110SS-WB Trayless Hot-Swap Cage with Wood Look Bezel which fits into a 5.25” bay and it allows you to put a standard 3.5” hard drive into it to transfer data back and forth and then just remove it when you’re done. The iStar dock I have for review today is trayless meaning you can just put the drive in and that’s it, no tray to mess with which I love as it makes life so much easier. What makes this dock special is the look of it, it has a wood finish, yes that’s not something you’d expect from something tech related but it works and it looks good. Read on…

Today, we are going to take a look at the 2933C12 version of Vengeance Pro, which is currently the fastest memory kit on Corsair’s pricelist. This makes us expecet some serious high-end modules and we're quite curious to see what Corsair has up in it's sleeve with this kit.

The VANGUARD B85 is an entry-level motherboard from the ASUS TUF series, compatible with socket LGA1150 processors and based on the Intel B85 chipset. It brings four SATA-600 ports and six USB 3.0 ports, and only one PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot. Let’s take a good look at it.

We analyzed the ASUS Vanguard B85, an entry-level socket LGA1150 motherboard based on Intel B85 chipset. It is part of the TUF (The Ultimate Force) series, which means it uses some high-grade components that give it a longer lifespan than "common" boards.

Launching a whole new range of sat navs is a risky business for TomTom. After all, as market leader there's only way to go. The temptation must be leave well alone.But our early experience with the brave new redesign in the form of the TomTom Go 6000 revealed something of a triumph. Can the TomTom Go 5000 possibly be as good?Let's hope so. Because the Go 6000 revealed a honed and toned TomTom with an interface optimised to make it easier and quicker to do the things that really mattered. It's navigation condensed down to the core essentials and all the better for it.The new interface just looks better, too, and with capacitive rather than resistive touch control the whole shebang is simply more responsive. Promising stuff all round. FeaturesLike the Go 6000, the Go 5000 sits atop its respective range.

2013 was the year of television with a 4K resolution, or 3840x2160 pixels. In 2014, the availability of these displays will further increase and the prices are likely to drop slightly. Polaroid has taken a step in the right direction, introducing a 4K-television that will retail at $999.99.

The N200 comes from Cooler Master's relatively new N-series lineup of compact mainstream cases that offers extensive cooling potential combined with a simplistic streamlined design. What makes the N200 particularly special is that it is the only case in the N-series lineup that Cooler Master considers a "mini-tower". It supports both micro-ATX or m-ITX motherboards yet is roomy enough to mount a front 240mm radiator, CPU tower coolers up to 160mm tall, lengthy graphics cards, up to four 120mm cooling fans, and up to seven storage drives. There are four retail models of the N200 on the market based on two designs: a base model featuring a single USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports (with and without a side panel window), and an Advanced chocolate-colored model featuring two USB 3.0 ports and a single USB 2.0 port (again with an optional a side panel window). The window-less versions offer support for an additional 120mm fan, and this is the version we have today. It is marketed at a rather miniscule $49.99 price point.

Considering the enormous growth of the compact computing market amongst enthusiasts, it's great to see such a smattering of features in this relatively small enclosure. Let's see how well it all performs in execution as we go in-depth with the Cooler Master N200.